Women struggle in relation to the dalit feminism: Adressing identity and equality

Abstract

This article studies several dalit feminist organization and links it to the women sustainance and their journey of development thru ages. For eg: it studies about Mahila sansad in mumbai, dalit stree sahitya manch, all india dalit women forum, vikas vanchit dalit parishad etc and on the other hand religious incidents of ancient times like burning of manusmriti and how it led to the introduction of all india women liberation day and later investigates a case study which tends to highlight the women journey from identity to equality.

In the 1980s, in a political context where the 'politics of presence' and the corresponding question of identity became increasingly important, there was a reconfiguration of the framework of universalism within which women's groups had hitherto functioned, irrespective of their perspectives on affiliation and autonomy. The recognition that 'difference', of class, caste, religion, sexuality, etc. formed significant axes around which the diversity of women's experience occurred, gave critical reflexivity to the women's movement, deepening its quest for substantive equality. On the other hand, it also opened up areas of tension, especially in the movement's position on gender justice and reform of religious personal laws, where acceptance of a differentiated universalism involved strategic withdrawal from the position of universalism.

The emergence of Dalit feminist voices from the mid-1980s drew attention to caste identities, which had hitherto been assumed as transcendable for the lalarger sister hood among women. This article studies several dalit feminist organization and links it to the women sustainance and their journey of development thru ages. For eg: it studies about Mahila sansad in mumbai, dalit stree sahitya manch, all india dalit women forum, vikas vanchit dalit parishad etc and on the other hand religious incidents of ancient times like burning of manusmriti and how it led to the introduction of all india women liberation day and later investigates a case study which tends to highlight the women journey from identity to equality.